3/15/2012

Delaplane Cellars Va Wine Blogger Barrel tasting

Jim and Betsy at Delaplane Cellars invited several Virginia Wine Bloggers out to Delaplane Cellars to preview the upcoming red wines straight from the barrel. We were thrilled to be invited. We started first in the tasting room trying a bit of the 2010 Mélange Blanc, a very nice dry white blend of 62 percent Chardonnay, 27 percent Viognier and 11 percent Petit Manseng, as a palate cleanser. This is a great white wine and should be a popular seller over the summer.

Jim Dolphin at the barrel

The Delaplane wines are all vineyard designated varietals or blends of high quality. Our barrel tasting consisted of of Delaplane Cellars' soon-to-be-released 2010 reds. These included the first ever blend of our Delaplane Vineyards Estate Red, the Springlot blend, and Williams Gap blend, plus Honah Lee Tannat, and Shirland Syrah. We also tried the new Late Harvest Petit Manseng.

Jim with the sneak thief giving Craig from Craig's Grape adventure a sample

My favorite among these red blends was the Williams Gap blend. This wine is a blend of 31 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 27 percent Cabernet Franc, 30 percent Merlot, and 12 percent Petit Verdot aged in a Slovakian oak barrel. This wine stood out to me as a potential Virginia Governor's gold medal winner should Jim enter it next year.

Jim has about four and half barrels of the 2010 Springlot blend. I liked it, but my notes aren't clear about the blend, other than it is a Bordeaux style.

Dezel making notes

The 2010 Shirland Syrah is aged in new American oak and is an easy drinking red, already with great flavors. The Honah Lee 2010 Tannat is 100 percent Tannat this year. The Tannat is awesome and should mellow with a bit more time in the barrel.

The new late Harvest Petit Manseng

The Late Harvest Petit Manseng is 100 percent estate grown with about ten and half percent residual sugar. The wine is nicely balanced with acidity so, while sweet, it is not cloying. There is a pronounced bouquet of pineapple. It is very good indeed.

Jim and Betsy were gracious hosts. They offered us quite an assortment of delicious foods to pair with the wines. We had a good time and were impressed with the dedication to quality at Delaplane Cellars. We will definitely return to try these wines when they are released.

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This Virginia wine blog of ours will cover our visits to Virginia wineries, Virginia wine festivals, Virginia vineyards, Virginia winery reviews, Virginia wine reviews, Virginia wine parties, Virginia wine trails, and observations about Virginia wine. As we live in Fairfax County, this Virginia wine blog will generally cover Northern Virginia wineries and tasting rooms the most. However, as we travel to other wine areas we will post about them too. She prefers White wines and some reds. I like both. Carol contributes most of the out-of-state posts. I produce most of the Virginia posts and Carol edits them.